I think Cameron is searching for "the narrative" like the rest of us. Is it so hard to admit that we're not sure who these people were; if there was any unifying motivation; how it spread from city to city, etc.

The present narratives are political (reaction to conservative policies), economic (poor deserving more) and moral (i.e. Cameron's narrative) Each helps us "control" something that seems "out of control" and impossible to understand.

Cameron's right and it's why conservatives have to take back the media from the Lefties.

The hard core Left has created a culture that has absolutely no values and no respect for the traditions of Western society. Witness John Cleese, having done all he could to demean British culture and tradition, making a great show of no longer living in London because it was no longer an English city.

Fred4Pres said...

It is about poverty of any civility. Too bad that England does not have any colonies to send these Hooligans off too. We could use a new Australia.

Correct as far as it goes, but woefully inadequate as an explaination. How did they get that way? Where did our liberalized culture get them there? And why is it no one is blaming modern culture's tendency to accomodate anything called a "lifestyle"?

I can't endorse Cameron's statement, at least not fully. The problem isn't people "showing disrespect to authority". I'd say a big part of the problem over there belongs to this entitled sense of "authority" on the part of the State. "Authority" had a large hand in setting up a hideous culture of dependence, irresponsibility and entitlement, while at the same time criminalizing the most basic rights of normal citizens to self-defense and personal agency. How is anyone, yob or brutalized shopkeeper, supposed to respect this "authority" that didn't allow the former to develop any self-respect and punished the latter for daring to possess self-respect and personal responsibility in the first place?

This assumption of "authority" is one of the reasons why we colonials shook off the ancestors of these latter-day Georgians several centuries ago.

To the extent it is about culture, it is about white culture. Namely, the lack of desire by whites to effectively suppress a low IQ, impulsive, violent minority. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that when left to their own devices, people of African descent have a tendency to return to the manner of behavior one finds in Africa. Further evidence can be found throughout the United States in any large city and in many small and large cities throughout the South.

Multiculturalism, progressivism, militant feminism, are all forms of radical egalitarianism that characterizes the New Left movement that sprung up in the '60s. Thank your liberal arts colleges and universities for this disease on Western civilization. They chose to become organizations that not only impart objective knowledge, such as the hard sciences, language, classical philosophy, music, literature, history, etc. But then the Frankfurt School adherents introduced the essentially worthless "soft sciences" into the curricula which are at their core nothing more than grievance courses. Sociology, women's studies, african-american studies, etc. And at their essence, any course of study that can trace it's roots back to the Frankfurt School is designed to promote "liberal" leftist ideology.

Liberal Arts colleges and univesities are as much indoctrination factories as they are institutions of higher learning.

How is anyone, yob or brutalized shopkeeper, supposed to respect this "authority" that didn't allow the former to develop any self-respect and punished the latter for daring to possess self-respect and personal responsibility in the first place?

Self-respect and personal responsibility from the rioting classes would be great, but if you can't have that, cowering deference to authority is better than what they've got now.

My wife and I used to watch Ladettes to Ladies. That was a great show. It is pathetic the combination of being unattractive, lazy and stupid is (with a heavy dose of chronic alcoholism and drug use mixed in). If anyone wants to critize American culture for being low rent and sleazy, the Ladette culture of the U.K. today makes the kids in To Sir, With Love look like an Oxford class.

Thank your liberal arts colleges and universities for this disease on Western civilization...

...a worldview cultured in a petri dish of extreme affluence and a growth media of white guilt. Without those two things, it never would have happened. The problem is that it colonized quickly, spread beyond standard virulent controls, infected the lab's techs and managers, and now threatens to kill all the hosts.

Let's face it - about 5% of our population is doomed because they think Jersey Shore, Girls Gone Wild, the Kardashians, Pimp My Crib and stuff like that is real life. They see dopes like those depicted on these shows and they think "hey I can do that too!"

There has always been an underclass in England. It was kept in check with captial punishment, an expansive British army and navy that sucked up young men for service, and transportation to the colonies.

This current mess is from decades of neglect, combined with a social welfare net that helps encourage a large minority of citizens to wallow lives of nothingness.

It makes you happy to see Mexican immigrants most of whom respect authority after they get here.

We have our problems too, but Mexican immigrants are more a symptom than an actual cause. I agree that most Mexicans are hard working and just looking for opportunity. They find it because the United States has its own underclass that does not feel the need to work hard in lower level jobs. We also get Mexican drug gangs, taking advantage of a lucrative drug market.

The UK does not have Mexicans, it has immigrants from Eastern Europe who do the jobs the local folks on the dole don't seem terribly inclined to do. They also have a sizable population of Pakistanis and Muslim Indians who are split between those who are British citizens and participants in the economy and those who live in self created Muslim ghettos.

gerry, if being an expert means not tollerating this sort of hooliganism and using appropriate force to resist it, yeah I am an expert. That sort of reaction used to be called common sense and decency.

Actually, you've found a happy home here. I reckon I'll be one of the few to say that your racist rant has no basis in reality, but other comments on this blog make it obvious that most of the commentators (and the hosts?) agree with that opinion of yours. Or, at the very least, don't disagree...

Purple Penguin - I think the people that wanted independence from the UK (or Spain) centuries ago were a far cry from the 3rd World welfare state thugs and yobs out looting and pillaging.Many areas didn't even have a full time "hero cop force" most didn't even have a single full time one.

I will still claim there isn't enough info yet to say "who these people were"

-common criminals?

-welfare recipients?

-ethnic minorities?

-angry whites?

(have I missed anyone?)

but such descriptions don't really tell us much and simply appeal to a particular bias (remember the media meme of "lots of white people" to describe the Tea Party, but not used to describe the protesters in Wisconsin.)

This was not happening three months ago and suddenly it happened all over England. What changed and what allowed it to occur in several different locations?

The obvious moral hazard of the welfare state as conceived, enacted, promoted and protected by Western Leftist is that it would result in ""A culture that glorifies violence, shows disrespect to authority, and says everything about rights but nothing about responsibilities."

If anybody's interested, the House of Commons is having a fascinating discussion about the riots and the BBC is carrying it live. There seems to be general consensus that the police need to have more support to act in good faith without fear of retribution. They haven't yet hit on the role of citizens in their own self-defense, yet. I've been waiting for that one to see how it goes.

When a comment is deleted it's deleted by the author OF THE COMMENT! Don't blame Ann. She lets everything fly.

You know, I've never even seen her talk about throwing an eraser at a student's head.

We're supposed to be adults.

With all sorts of opinions. These are called opinions, because they are not mind-changers.

Unless you collect opinions and weigh them up.

But even then, Gallup can get the results wrong. Statistically speaking it's all about math without a table. But with al-gore's-rhythm. (Where I've been thinking Al Gore just ain't got no rhythm at all.)

asdf - Your post was racist to the extent it broad-brushed all blacks as behaving in a certain way.

But liberals are just as guilty by their strident, near hysterical demand that we not associate behaviors to any culture or group.

"Not all Muslims are terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslims"

Liberal - It should be illegal, a hate crime, or you should be censored by wise government people or fired by employers for saying such...because there are non-Muslim terrorists..You hating, hateful bigot!!

"Not all flash mobbers beating people on the street are black thugs targeting white people...but that is true in most cases."

Liberal - The fact that some non-black thugs have done flash mobs, and sometimes targeted non-whites just shows how evil and racist you are to make such a statement. You should apologize before we feel you must be dragged before the people and shamed and punished. You cannot generalize! This is simply individuals doing crime and Rule of Law and our majestic courts are more than up to the task of serving justice. Shut up!

Hoosier Daddy said...An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.

Robert A. Heinlein

======================Heinlein did not live in Afghanistan, Somalia, or Iraq.

If you read his stuff, he clearly meant an armed white society was a polite society Because his post doomsday fiction was always about plucky, freedom-loving, noble capitalist whites protecting themselves with cherished firearms against the howling mobs of the cities (read rioting niggers of the 60s) Darky mobs that reverted to savagery the moment the veneer of civilization was removed.

He also did not favor well-armed bug societies, considering them more dangerous than inner city dwellers with guns that sought the sacred private property of whites who best be armed in their survival camps.

Hey Ann, Cedarford used the "n" word. Isn't that the one offense that will get a comment deleted here? Or is that only when it is used to expose racism in others and not when it is heart-felt racism by the commenter?

Au Contraire. Hitler was almost killed during WWI. A great deal of our timeline's history would have turn on that singular event.

================That subscribes to the Single Great Man as the prime causative factor of all History.

That is rarely so. Leaders come out of movements. No Stalin, some other ruthless survivor of the Jewish-Russian Bolshevik mob would have emerged and done the same sort of democide. Ditto Mao. No Lincoln, same sort of flow of history. Shoot Hitler in WWI and Germany would still be revanchist, still out to change that map of Europe, still out to reduce or eliminate undue Jewish influence on industry, finance, and the Red Terror.Hard right fascism in response to the Soviet would still have emerged in multiple places in Europe. Without Hitler, Germany might have fared better in WWII. He ignored top German political and military advice to move into Spain and close off the Med to the Brits. Or to finish off Britain following sealing the Med - before hitting the Soviets. Or grant the Poles and Ukrainians an autonomous Protectorate then independence if they would join Germany in war against their communist masters.

Alternate history is somewhat entertaining, like moot trials that never happened.But the Single Great Man as Prime Mover of History has been fairly well debunked..despite Americans, in particular, seeking to personalize things so the upcoming movies will be more entertaining.

Bin Laden was not the evil mastermind of all Muslim terror. Killing him was personally gratifying, but of no real consequence in the flow of history.MLK did not come out of nowhere as the single Black Moses who had the ability to lead His People to the Promised Land.

Sounds like Cameron is channeling Disney. Those whose businesses were destroyed will be compensated by Parliament. (While I'm sure insurance companies will jump in and add a category ... as was done here, in California, where you pay money to protect yourself from earthquake damage.)

One way or another the government "provides." (And, the taxpayer's wallet is opened.)

What place hasn't seen riots?

Are they always caused by a shortage of food? Or the viseral hatreds that develop between one group rubbing shoulders with another group?) Gosh darn if I know.

What does it mean that Cameron now gets worldwide attention?

Are we watching solutions being debated? Or just another show?

Again. I have no idea.

Behind the scenes, what will the storekeepers do?

Part of this problem is cell phones! Ubiquitous! An easy riot, it seems, to start ... if people respond ... when you "call them by number."

Perhaps? Perhaps the "new riot" ... is something like a "flash mob" ... where people once came to dance and sing? And, get on U-tube.

Is it the cameras ... and the content that gets noticed around the world ... that drives this beast?

I just don't know!

But if it is "theatre" ... the advantages of being recognized before you arrive at the mic ... may be what keeps the circus tent up, after all?

Watching Parliament, now, how can you tell the difference between a good debate and hot air?

Oh, wow. So much goes on behind the scenes ... of which we just do not know.

Actually While listening to BBC overnight, I heard one female commentary who described the problem as resulting from the diminishment of of the social welfare system. to quote she said "The UK used to have a social welfare system that gave people pride" I was not aware that pride was a thing that could passed out like so much candy on Halloween.

But the Single Great Man as Prime Mover of History has been fairly well debunked

Please explain, without access to those other timelines, how this could be "debunked". I'm not suggesting what I said is gospel. I'm simply skeptical that you can debunk something like this...sort of the opposite of first-level counterfactuals, it would seem.

Purple Penguin, I'd really be interested in seeing your lists of the comments which "make it obvious that most of the commentators (and the hosts?) agree with that opinion of yours. Or, at the very least, don't disagree..."

The current HoC session is just a bunch of 4-minute speeches by the present members (and most are not present at the time). I don't know how frequently British politicians will give speeches for the sake of generating quotes for their next campaign. If they do that (like we too often do), this day could be just that.

But even at that, and even considering that most of the House is absent, it's nearly unanimous that police need more license to actively put down riots rather than just hold defensive positions. And there is basically zero discussion about the average citizen's role in protection of their own property and that of their neighbors.

For those interested in UK gun control debate - that seems to be a light year or two away from the table. So far, only one person commended the citizens who organized to defend neighborhoods.

Freder Frederson said...Hey Ann, Cedarford used the "n" word. Isn't that the one offense that will get a comment deleted here? Or is that only when it is used to expose racism in others and not when it is heart-felt racism by the commenter?

========================Hey Freder, not my fault you are too stupid to note that Heinlein was greatly influenced by rioting black mobs in the 50s (anticolonial terrorists)and 60s (US inner cities) and used bug aliens, all white survival camps, and "spacing" unproductive, parasitic members of lunar colonies who did not work enough to earn their oxygen...to illustrate his libertarian sentiments.

He wasn't the only one that wrote in sci-fi "code" for how problems in society could be addressed in a fictional context. Pournelle, Niven, Arthur C Clarke also did it in certain us vs. the savages themes...And writers in the bedwetting liberal and E. European, Soviet camps had their themes in sci-fi.

But when this 'authority' gives so much money away to the lazy, bankrupts the thrifty, disarms the good people, and even teaches sex from a gynecologist point of view to little children, well why would anyone respect such 'authority'?

The Brits are getting the kind of government their socialist tendencies crave.

I only worry of America will get the same. Just re-elect Obama and find out.

Pournelle, Niven, Arthur C Clarke also did it in certain us vs. the savages themes

Not influenced at all by that land war in Asia at the time, nosir. Despite the fact that there was an enemy technologically inferior and fighting like savages, giving us much grief. Nope. No influence. It HAD to be all those black people.

It's about a culture of emasculation, where law-abiding citizens are threatened with prison time for defending themselves and their businesses, while looters have "human rights" to worry about (like the right to loot without police harassment).

I believe a big contributor is the sense of entitlement instilled by politcially correct liberals who preached that simply desiring something is sufficient.

My ex-wife believed that simply having the right intention was sufficient excuse for anything. She's nuts, so what does that make liberals who pretty much believe the same (then there are those born againers who believe that simply believing in Jesus is sufficient to save you; my conclusion, an awful lot of self-proclaimed religious conservatives are merely liberals opposed to abortion.)

I haven't read a series of ill-informed, completely ignorant statements in a long time. And that is saying a lot since I read this blog frequently. But with this thread you have all outdone yourselves. Cedarford even has enough guts to blame the niggers knowing he can get away with it.

In total, how much time of any of you spent in England? You don'r know the first thing about the nation or the people yet you are willing to condemn the whole society.

You are just a bunch of ignorant morons who don't even bother to examine your preconceived notions.

DADvocate: It's more about a culture of entitlement and hatred of the rich than a culture of violence. Listen to the girls on this short video. It's about drinking and taking what you want from the evil rich.

Obama and the Dems are working hard creating the same atmosphere here.

Yes.Obama paints a picture of cuts in government spending being done on the backs of the poor, while the greedy rich won't pay their fair share as they sit around and count their money.

When a comment is deleted it's deleted by the author OF THE COMMENT! Don't blame Ann. She lets everything fly.

True, and be cautious if your post seems to be "gone" - I had one that landed up in the spam filter, and all it took was a polite e-mail to the Prof asking what might have happened to straighten matters out.

However, I seems to me pretty fatuous for politicians and the mediaswine to bemoan "lack of respect for authority." They have worked in concert to diminish the legitimacy of governments, the wielders of that authority.

@AmbaA work-around is to copy a line from the article, then paste it into Google. Try "U.K. Considers Riots Measures". A couple of the top links will send you straight to the article. Google has an agreement with the WSJ to do this, I believe.

Scott M said...But the Single Great Man as Prime Mover of History has been fairly well debunked

Please explain, without access to those other timelines, how this could be "debunked".=========================It is not hard to go back and study movements and how one of several candidates that were acceptable to the movement eventually had a "Famous Leader" emerge...Which, if they suddenly dropped dead or disappeared in a puff of smoke..would have resulted in another "Famous Leader" acceptable to the movements key players emerging.

No Stalin - Kaganovich or Sverdlov or someone the Central Committee wanted to do pretty much that same things.No Lincoln, not chosen after days the North deliberated on choosing between Frick and Frack and Fred and Abe - some other jamoke would have headed Union in the Civil War and made notable speeches. If Churchill had not convinced his backers his drinking problem was behind him (it wasn't) - someone else would have done similar pretty and inspiring WWII speeches we would have come to know instead and credited him, not Churchill, drying out in Scotland had he not been selected by Party to run as PM, with making.MLK was just one of dozens of civil rights "frontmen" the movement cultivated and thought capable of implementing decisions and policy the organizers and financiers wanted.The Wright brothers just beat others in the race. Had they not lived, airplanes would have still been aloft within a year, even a few months later. The efficient internal combustion engine drove it.

Sometimes a person is instrumental to history and you can't see an alternative that would have come up with the impact, or the eventual political movement that carried out the ideas originating in one or just a couple of people that start things rolling.Henry the VIII, Marx-Engels, Mohammed come to mind. But in general, the Lone Great Man as Prime Mover of History is a flawed idea.

Freder Frederson said...When a comment is deleted it's deleted by the author OF THE COMMENT! Don't blame Ann. She lets everything fly.

Not true. Ann has deleted comments in the past (including mine) and she seems particularly sensitive to the use of the word "nigger", no matter what the context.

Freder, if she deleted you for using "nigger" perhaps it was because you write it in an accusatory fashion, not as a literary allusion to 'code' a Sci-Fi writer used.

BTW, how are you dealing with Obama and your cherished terrorist rights beliefs. You have been rather silent about your Man keeping GITMO open, the "kill do not arrest" Binnie raid, and the Obama people whacking Islamoids by the now preferred "extrajudicial assassination" technique.

Must drive an enemy lover like you to fits of frustration to have a duty to shut up about what Obama is doing in order to serve the greater cause against the West!

Freder condensed: "You're all ignorant morons but I just can't help myself coming here to read Cedarford's posts to look for the n-word. Oh yeah, here's my opinion of the riots: You're all ignorant morons. So there."

Freder wrote: In total, how much time of any of you spent in England? You don'r know the first thing about the nation or the people yet you are willing to condemn the whole society.

The post solicits a reaction to comments from the Prime Minister reflecting on the nature of the British culture. I'm pretty sure he's spent some time there.

Also, many of us have spent time in the UK and the Commonwealth and have a good grasp of British and derivative cultures.

And some of us went to school during a time when "multi-cultural" and "diversity" related to studying others in their countries of origin, not merely to the inability or unwillingness of a few groups to be assimilated by ours.

Maybe, I'm just being silly. But I don't see London's "Bobby" becoming more militant.

If anything, I always go to the Disney-man's model of security. Where a street myth is created. You don't see security. You don't even see men in suits who talk into their shirt cuffs. It's very practiced. And, hidden.

I know it's there. And, I know to walk about "Main Street" Disney is now collecting $150 for each person. For each day.

I know the staff absolutely must SMILE! You don't see fat. You don't see frowns. You don't even see cash registers.

Most people love it this way.

As to political speeches ... the only ones here I used to watch were Bob Dornan's. He was called the B-1 Bomber, speechmaker.

And, then I saw him voted out of office. And, in came Sanchez. (She is still there!) And, when she arrived? She played this schtick that she sewed her own dress.

Campaigning is so theatrical.

But like vaudeville, some acts are driven out of business.

I just don't know which ones that will be.

Why do I seem repulsed (if that's the word), by Disney? Because I grew up near Coney Island. Went there a lot! Messy. Smelly. And, the "carneys" ran the businesses. Where they boarded up their rides and booths every winter. Coney Island was a summer crowd.

Nathan's, however, was open 24/7. And, people just double-parked to run out and get their hotdogs.

I knew the cops, then, were paid off in free food. Nobody ever got a ticket.

Rupert in charge of social network monitoring? Gotta love the humor in that. :-)

But seriously, I see no problem with monitoring the open networks like Twitter and facebook. Blackberry's nominally set up for business, so privacy is a bit more important there (and expected). That might take more doing.

As for the government: they're all in reaction mode at the moment. I'll be interested to see where they stand two months (or so) from now, once the emotion has passed. My guess is that they'll fall straight back into the habits that created the unaccountable welfare subculture in the first place, with a little bit of extra lipstick on the pig.

Honestly, I don't anticipate any significant changes unless this repeats a couple more times. But I'd really be happy to be wrong.

Fear is a good short term motivator. The rioters showed no evidence of fear which shows social control has broken down.

This especially in the land of social justfare, perpetual big brother spying, union control, national healthcare, a massive pensioners paradise, etc. Gosh and golly, I wonder what the little people want from mommy government that made them throw such an awful globally viewed temper tantrum?

The UK is the design of leftism on total display. This is leftism in full regalia. Have fun leftards for what you have wrought. This is your fault. You created this monster. Good luck retracting and putting it back. I'm laughing at you leftards so hard. You have proven everything I've ever said about leftism and leftards. You are dangerous people who have clung to a dangerous, poisonous, bankrupt ideology.

I will still claim there isn't enough info yet to say "who these people were"

Read one of Theodore Dalrymple's books. If you don't know who he is, he is a prison psychiatrist and an excellent writer. He is now retired to France, like most of England's middle class retirees, but is still writing.

Churchill had not convinced his backers his drinking problem was behind him (it wasn't) - someone else would have done similar pretty and inspiring WWII speeches we would have come to know instead and credited him, not Churchill, drying out in Scotland had he not been selected by Party to run as PM, with making.

No, Lord Halifax would have signed an armistice with Hitler. As it was, he very nearly did so in spite of Churchill. Read Lukacs' book.

Could there be anything more crushing than seeing your daughter away at college on your dime show up on one of those commercials?

Yes. Your son being the brainchild of those videos and a) not repaying you for tuition/fees/room&board etc, b) not cutting you in on a slice of that sweet money pie, and c) not providing you with each DVD for free.

You know, I would suspect if "social network monitoring" got adopted ... what you'd see are false alarms.

Then?

Well, the sirens would attract enough attention ... that people who stuck their heads outside ... would probably just get arrested.

All you'd need? Whatever it takes to cause a critical mass in an unstable environment.

People, it seems, are always protecting themselves against yesterday.

While insurance companies come on board and offer "insurance" at a premium.

Now, what are the shopping malls gonna do? (Were they once protected ... because to get there ... you need to park?) It's not something that gets built in all those neighborhoods in ghettos. For "traffic" like that a storekeeper sometimes keeps his front door locked. (Which then brings on the fire department.)

Anything you can fine ... you can expect will be used to raise money through tickets.

It's just a question of price.

Tickets no longer carry ten dollar fines. Graft used to sink down to these levels. Till "stings" uncovered the operation. And, a cop or a fireman, when they got fired over bupkis, lost their pensions.

Governments don't get fired.

While in most parliamentary systems ... what's broken is the array of choices voters get ... so a party that wins one seat ... is an "operator" ... who is courted for votes.

I like our system better. Where a smidgen above 50% lets the winner walk away with the whole pot.

I don't think most Americans understand how loony the european systems really are. And, how really nasty politics can be behind the scenes and screens.

This riot started as the result of a police shooting. The police thought a young man was going to shoot at them. They shot him first. In order to demonstrate to the police and the public at large that they were being unfairly stereotyped as violent and dangerous, the young people of England rose up and acted violently and dangerously. There is no better way to destroy a harmful stereotype than by destroying the property and occasionally the lives of those who hold that stereotype.....One of the underlying principles of democracy is that people will act in their rational self interest. Looting while helpful in overcoming boredom does not qualify as an act of rational self interest. Well, the world has ever been full of people who don't recognize their rational self interest. Why should now be any different......On the brighter side, the riots are less consuming than the Gordon Riots of prior times, and the underclass seem somewhat better behaved than the Bill Sykes of Dickens' day. There is definitely incremental improvement since the Neanderthal era for those willing to look.

There is also the Cleopatra's Nose theory of history. A historian postulated that if Cleopatra had a less impressive probiscus, Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony would not have fallen in love with her. Thus the history of the empire would have been radically different. History hinges any number of variables and imponderables. One of those variables is the greatness of the actors present. We were blessed to have George Washington present at the Constitutional Convention. He was the adult in the room. At the Congress of Vienna, the world was blessed to have Wellington serve the same function. He was looked up to by everybody and was able to veto the more self serving aims of the participants in that Congress....I have often thought that the great tragedy of our time is that no great man arose out of WWI and the Paris Treaty that followed it. Everyone in the world wanted Wilson to be the great man, but he was sadly lacking in the necessities to fill that role. Perhaps, if he hadn't had such pursed lips.

Sure, the rioters embody a cultural problem, created and imported in the UK by conscious decisions of 2 generations of political leaders, mostly Labour and Liberal but Conservatives not blameless, either.

It will take a long time to turn around the cultural rot, if it's even possible and if they have the stomach for it.

But the culture that leads some people to commit violence need not make it impossible for society to defend itself... that's a whole different set of decisions that criminalize self-defense and handcuff the police, which could be revered by act of Parliament in an afternoon. The fact that they don't do it is another cultural issue, one for which the ruling class should be held accountable--there's blood on their hands and there will be rivers more of it if they persist in letting these things happen... as experience suggests they will.